To ask what your goal salary is?

[SmokeyApo]

Hi all, just being nosey here

I have been thinking a lot about career progression and asking for a raise lately, and that got me thinking about what my goal salary is. As in, the salary that I would like to earn at the peak of my career (let's say between age 40 and 50).

So I will ask: what would your goal salary be?

I won't share mine for now just because I don't want to influence the answers, but I will happily share it later on.

@MerryDecembermas

The number of people saying they have flexible, low stress jobs on 100k+ is crazy here

Agreed, when I was a high earner, I could technically work from home, with client visits, but it was most definitely not low stress, nor for anyone else I know in real life. I enjoyed it but felt burnt out after seven years.

@mizu that's crazy. A teacher in Ireland with 26yrs of service would earn around 70k. How does that happen in the U.K.??

It completely depends on where you live.

Having a goal of, for example, £100k when you live in central London is completely different to having that same goal and living in rural Scotland or the north of England

I am very very happy with my salary, 42k, in a job I love. I don't tend to compare much with others, that's just asking for trouble and discontentment.

I'm 52 and in the very fortunate position where being in a job that fulfils me and part time is a far bigger factor than salary.

I work for a charity that I care passionately about and my hours fit around DD's school. My husband earns around £70k. We know how very lucky we are.

But I had to work 2 jobs for many years, paid into a pension from 18yo and lived off rice and beans (almost) for a long, long while. I didn't drive before 35, didn't have a vacuum cleaner, didn't have a mobile phone. All so that I could pay the mortgage on a 1 bed flat. I was single at the time, and very, very unhappy. I was existing rather than living.

So I sort of feel that I've earned my comfortable current lifestyle.

The interesting other question, which has sometimes been answered, is how many people are at their target income now and basically content with what they earn.

A number of people have said they are content. Either they are at their target salary now, or they are happy with what they have for now and expect it to rise over time.

I mentioned earlier that many people have a target lifestyle and the target salary and choice if work/amount if work is determined by that...often it’s a household thing and not just that if one individual. Others have a target salary or perhaps job and the lifestyle fits in and is determined by that. For most people it’s a bit of both.

I’m pleased to see so many women earning good salaries on here. Most are more than I earn and I don’t have any problem with that and it certainly doesn’t make me feel crap or inferior. I have made choices to not take on responsibilities at work, when I could have gained significant promotions if I had chosen to. My choice and I’m happy with it and the outcomes of it in terms of salary and lifestyle. Other people wanted more money or got the satisfaction from greater responsibility at work and that’s made them happy.

There is the question about job satisfaction in itself outside of salary and making choices outside of salary, but also about the income, either individual or household that makes you content and allows you to live the life you want. For the latter it does clearly vary and some people want an awful lot and others are very easily pleased. Most people expand their lifestyle as they earn more and find those things then become the norm and they couldn’t imagine managing without them. Others don’t really expand their lifestyle and for them it’s easier to then reduce earning power if they choose to.

As is often said in here, comparison can be the thief of joy. I’ve enjoyed seeing what others earn because I’m interested and don’t feel disappointed in my outcomes compared to others. Some clearly find it a bit upsetting which maybe suggests that either they haven’t met their target yet or perhaps feel they never will, or that comparison and relative performance is something that’s important to them. Most people could adjust things in their lives to some extent to earn more if they wanted to.... but there are always compromises and choices invoked in doing that and some people will always say they cannot make those choices because of constraints. It’s all compromise in the end and we all choose which constraints to embrace or to overcome, and very few things are 100% fixed but a question of how much we are prepared to adjust our lives and those of our families.

Some people turn their careers and lives round later, but I think Xenia is broadly right that the choices girls (and boys too of course) make at school and the courses they then choose and careers they go into initially determine their earning power. The message isn’t clear enough that some things pay much more than others. The message that you should just do what interests you or you enjoy without any wider consideration often prevails and later, many women say they hadn’t realised the different salary oaths of different careers, along with also not knowing things like which careers might give good pensions or flexible working or other things they might value. A more thorough and wide-ranging consideration of the implications of different career choices would benefit most, considering it’s something that often impacts your whole life.

I'd love a combined household income of 100k. Where we are in the NE that would be very comfortable. DP and I are currently both on around 30k (aged 27) but we're pretty stressed. Feels like we're both on the cusp of being properly remunerated for that stress but we're not quite there yet although we do already feel financially comfortable. We live in a tiny house and intend to stay here, spending well on good travel for the next 5 or so years before buying something bigger and thinking about kids. Hopefully then we'll be on closer to 80k combined and could spend c. 300k on a nice house- it'd get you a very decent 4 bed where we are.

I think income/comfort is so subjective. We have family members who are massively struggling or on benefits and we try to help where we can/it feels appropriate. I feel very lucky to be able to take around a week's shopping or help buy new shoes for a relative's child without needing to think about where the money is coming from.

I reached my peak I think and now stepping back now I paid my mortgage off and have savings on dropping one part of my Job so losing around 70 a year but for me it’s better for our family.

What I think this thread demonstrates is how salaries reflect the values within our society.

Thus business and wealth generation is king, along with rampant consumerism. Those who work in "human" or "animal" fields generally have considerably reduced earning potential as we expect them to do these jobs for the satisfaction (or the "claps" during Covid times).

Before anyone accuses me of being naive or stupid, I am perfectly aware that public sectors rely on a healthy economy. I still maintain that we worship wealth for it's own sake rather than as a means to an end.

Unfortunately my DD is keen to work in a low paid but essential field which still requires degree level training (same as DH). It would be tempting to push her towards a higher paying career but not something we would want to do. She hasn't been put off by seeing her Dad work all hours in a life saving role (and not earning anywhere near some of the salaries mentioned on here).

As pps have said, DH and I have never had "earning goals" either but bearing in mind most public sector jobs are capped there would be little point.

I also totally agree with pp who said that pay does not necessarily correlate with responsibility, accountability or skill.

How many high earners leave their most precious family member in child care with a nursery nurse who is likely on minimum wage. How much responsibility do they have on a daily basis?

Again it demonstrates the value we, as a society, place on people vs profit.

This isn't meant unkindly by the way. Fair play and all credit to those who have worked hard to achieve and maximise their earnings. I just hope that my DC realise that, whilst we need a certain amount of money to maintain a reasonable standard of living, it isn't a guarantee of happiness or contentment. Having worked for some v high earners I can safely testify that many had dysfunctional private lives, and although their wealth provided a cushion of tangible benefit it didn't fundamentally allow them any greater feelings of inner peace. You can be just as miserable in Harrods food hall as you can in Aldi

What I think is a real shame is that you need to be earning a very high salary even to afford the very basics - a house. I feel sorry for young people now - it’s not right.

I think I'll peak at about £75k-80k. Currently on £55k and plan to move jobs next year and would expect that to be about £65k. The plan would be next role for 5 years and one final big role at probably £75k, possibly more depending on which direction I decide to take. I am happy with what I earn now but I'm ready for the next step. I also have some other income so it works for me

My ex started off at £35, had an ambition for £50 but by the time he was earning £200k plus he was still looking at £300k. Not because of the money but because he saw other people who he percieved to be less able than him and aimed for that

I have only done minimum wage jobs (not through choice), I think the most I've earnt in a year was about £16k. Even £25k sounds nice to me

I have holiday goals so I aim to make sure my salary matches those...! Applied for a promotion this year in order to book an additional holiday, that was genuinely the driving factor

dobidobidooo I know ! 5 years of that was abroad though and I'm in FE which is terribly paid. Most of my staff are on a few thousand less.

@MerryDecembermas

The number of people saying they have flexible, low stress jobs on 100k+ is crazy here

I'm one of those people, and very aware of my luck in life.

I work for a small ish company, but very profitable (£100 million turnover, high profit margin)

At 30 and childless, I was earning £30k but unsocial
Hours. I made a career choice, re trained with a specialist masters degree, took a pay cut to get into my industry and in the past 8 years have quadrupled my salary. Largely with a massive dose of luck and being in the right place at the right time, but also with some clear career goals and a lot of hard work proving my ability to jump up the ladder quickly.

I am now on the leadership team, and out of 6 directors, 4 are women. I work in a male dominated industry and we are all proud of our female heavy work population. We look for recent graduates and try to fill roles with ambitious young people. I'll be honest that if it came down to 2 equally qualified candidates, we hire the females. Which means we now have 70/30 weighted female / male ratio. We love it!!

We Also have a very low turnover (less than 5% leave voluntarily). We all know we work for a great company, and i am thrilled to be part of the leadership team that creates this supportive culture.

Don't get me wrong, I can often work well into the night to get things done, and we have high expectations of all our team, but I can also do school runs, after school clubs, dinner and bedtime etc. I rarely work weekends.

10 years ago I wouldn't think this was impossible and simply didn't exist. I feel very fortunate to be in this position and would encourage anyone to seek new opportunities, take a chance and believe in yourself

@GreenGarden22 really interesting to read your story. I think it highlights that if you want to prioritise pay then you have to make active decisions, you can't passively expect to earn more (in most cases). My figures aren't as high as yours, but I had a labour of love job that had a very low ceiling (female dominated industry...) as much as I enjoyed the job I wasn't happy to accept such a low salary and that affected my overhaul happiness and how valued I felt, I have other ambitions outside of my career and they need money! So I took my career into a slightly different direction, didn't require retraining thankfully but meant building a new skill set and changing jobs, I have doubled my salary in 2 years and increased my ceiling dramatically.

It is absolutely important to do something you enjoy, life is too short to work in a job you hate whatever the salary, but I think there is an element of shame around prioritising salary and having money based goals, more so women, which there shouldn't be. I'm not afraid to make money based goals and do it more now than ever.

@HelenHywater can I ask what you do now? Or what sort of general area? (From a solicitor who hates her job and would really like a career change but no idea to what!)

There are currently 128,557 jobs listed on the UK Gov's Find A Job site findajob.dwp.gov.uk/search (other job sites are available, Find A Job is not exclusive or exhaustive by any means!) and of those 393 are categorised as having a salary over £100k.

There will be some mistakes because I can see that the person uploading has put the annual salary (eg £35k) into the 'per hour' category - heh. I've already reported a few of the mistaken ones.

In case it's useful to make note of what sorts of jobs there are, and what they ask of people, here are some examples -

• Associate Dentist - £150,000 to £180,000 per year
• Digital User Researcher - £600 per day
• Business Analyst - £500 per day
• Scala Developer - £770 day rate
• Managing Director - Property Services - £110,000.00 to £130,000.00 per year
• Economics Director, Ofcom - £100,000 to £150,000 per year
• Managing Director - £150,000 to £180,000 per year
• Medical Director/ Consultant Psychiatrist - £130,000 per year

I don't think I could do any of them and most of them seem a bit unexciting (to me at least).

Having said that I generally give an annual invited lecture and am paid approx £72 per hour for doing it (just the lecture, not the preparation) and that appears to work out at a ('pro rata') annual salary of over £140,000, though admittedly my take home is a mere 0.048%. If I ever apply for another job I will obviously leverage this 'fact', if I can keep a straight face ;)

Jo

@Xenia I hope so but it’s unlikely. He is in computing and I am in healthcare.

Household income here of about 54k of which I bring in 50k. Pretty happy here. DH is a (mostly) SAHD and 50k allows us to do that and still enjoy some treats within budget.

Career wise I'm aiming for about 75k, that's seems to be the level in my career that doesn't carry too much seniority and crazy work ethic. 31 now so plenty of time to get there. Any incremental increases at the minute over 50k are going into my pension so I don't see it anyway! So I won't see any uplift in take home until I hit 60k.

Personally I want to earn enough now so I can start thinking about going part time later and slow down from 50 ish with a shorter working week without a massive financial hit.

@MerryDecembermas

The number of people saying they have flexible, low stress jobs on 100k+ is crazy here

The most stressful job I’ve ever had, I was earning £40k. Long hours, constant hassle from management due to their shitty decision-making skills, targets, deadlines, stress. Awful. Couldn’t sleep, all my free time was spent thinking about work.

I literally walked out of here one Friday and didn’t go back.

Then I made a conscious effort to move out of that industry, took a more junior role at a lower salary to get into another industry and worked my way up.

Ten years on, I’m on over £100k and have the least stress I’ve ever had in my working life. Sure, I have deadlines and periods of stress and long nights, but overall I have very few sleepless nights.

That’s down to the fact that I can make decisions. I made a good one this morning that’s moved a project along very nicely so I’m currently sitting here with a nice cup of tea enjoying the rest of my lunch break. Might catch up on an episode of something before I go back to my laptop.

I have a great team who I try not to stress out too much, but ultimately they don’t have the same amount of experience I do so they’ll stress doing certain things for the first time when I could do them in my sleep so it’s second nature.

At this stage of my career, I’m paid for the experience I bring and my ability to use that experience to drive projects and save money, not for the minutes I spend sitting at my desk.

@Zalto I feel like we could be the same person!

My most stressful job I was in my 20's, earning (less than) minimum wage, working 12 - 14 hour days. Work completely took over my life and was unbelievably stressful. If I didn't hit daily deadlines with my tasks, it affected 1,000's of people. EVERY SINGLE DAY

I now earn £120k with a good work/life balance.

Can people who earn £50k plus please share with the rest of us what they do 😂😂

I actually think the whole 'London centric' wages thing is set to change due to Covid. I work 'in London' so have a London salary and most of my friends earn between 50k up to 120k (I'm at the bottom of that!) But people are looking to move out now, including us. We could well end up living on the south coast as I only need to commute one day a week. I think most of my London based friends will no longer live in London but will maintain their London salaries.
I think in the long term that could really help people from other parts of the country access these higher salaries because you no longer will need to live there to get a job or maybe salaries will no longer be so high? I'm interested to hear if anyone else has thoughts on this? I know there will be a lot of change but not sure how it will pan out.

@justwant2beamum civil servant grade 7